Labor Camp Threat: “We Have 108 Torture Methods!”

January 26, 2014 | By a Minghui correspondent in Jilin Province, China

(Minghui.org) Liu Ying, head of the No. 3 Division at the Jilin Women’s Forced Labor Camp, threatened Ms. Cai Guoxian in July 2012, “We have 108 types of torture methods! Do you think you’ll leave here alive?” These torture methods are all designed and implemented for the sole objective of forcing Falun Gong practitioners to abandon their beliefs.

Ms. Cai Guoxian from Songyuan City, Jilin Province was subjected to multiple types of torture during her detention at the labor camp from July 18, 2011 to February 26, 2013. The tortures included solitary confinement, verbal abuse, punching and kicking, electric shocks, forced standing for 17 hours every day, and most cruelly, nearly 12 hours of the “stretching torture.”

The mix of tortures were intermittently carried out to coerce Ms. Cai into signing statements slandering Falun Gong and renouncing her belief against her will. After suffering for a year at the No. 2 Division without giving in, she was put in solitary confinement in July 2012 at the No. 3 Division, where the torture escalated.

She was forced to watch brainwashing videos, coupled with stress position tortures, beatings, and electric shocks for months in the No. 3 Division. On October 18, 2012, she was subjected to the stretching torture for almost 12 hours. She was released from the “death bed” only after labor camp personnel recorded her, while in the torture position and without clear conscience, verbally agree to “transform.” She was then forced to write “statements” by following what a prison guard dictated to her, word by word.

A recent Minghui website report identifies 546 confirmed death cases as a direct result of torture and killing in labor camps, out of the total 2,383 death cases resulting from imprisonment. Usage of multiple torture methods contributes to 34% of death cases at labor camps.

Below is Ms. Cai’s personal account.

My name is Cai Guoxian. I’m 52 years old and live in Changling County, Songyuan City. In July 2011, I was arrested for handing out copies of Minghui Weekly and Shen Yun DVDs at a relative’s wedding.

I was detained for two weeks at the Changling County Detention Center before being taken to the Jilin Women’s Forced labor Camp on July 17, 2011. I was detained there for one year and seven months.

I spent the first, and most miserable, 12 months in the No. 2 Division, until it was disbanded on July 24, 2012. I was then transferred to the No. 3 Division. Because I refused to give up my belief, I was locked up in a small cell, where I suffered abuse at the hands of the “helping team,” a team focusing on brainwashing and torturing Falun Gong practitioners.

The guards forced practitioners to watch DVDs that slandered Dafa and our Master. “Baojia” (refers to criminal inmates assigned by the guards to monitor Falun Gong practitioners) also forced us to read defamatory books against Dafa. A guard with the surname Ni dragged me to the TV set and started hitting me.

Guard Ye Jiong beat me with her hands at first, then started kicking me hard. I told her that she was persecuting me. She responded, “So what? I get a monthly salary of over 4000 yuan for persecuting you!”

Guard Wang Lei forced me to write “thought reports,” and each time I wrote, “Falun Dafa is good. Master is good.”

Ye Jiong and Liu Ying were furious when they read my reports. Ye Jiong repeatedly slapped my face while Liu Ying punched and kicked me. Seeing that I could not be “transformed,” they forced me to stand without moving for 17 hours every day, even when I was eating my meals.

In order to force me to write the “five statements” (similar to the three statements), they hit, kicked, and punched me on the head. They also shocked me with electric batons until it was almost time for them to go home.

Every day after lunch, Ye Jiong came to replace the two “baojia.” She made sure I was standing straight upright without moving, and forced me to watch videos that slandered Falun Gong. The whole time this was going on, in my heart I kept reciting, ‘Falun Dafa is good’. In the evening when everyone else was asleep, they took me to another room to continue standing until 11:00 p.m.

I was forced to stand this way for over 20 days until my feet and legs became so swollen and painful that I could hardly walk. Guard Wang Lei then forced me to sit on a small plastic flower pot for 17 hours every day without moving.

This form of torture continued for over 20 days. Around September 10, Wang Lei called me to the office, where Liu Ying and Ye Jiong shocked me with electric batons while punching and kicking me, and slapping my face. Liu Ying grabbed my hair and pulled out a handful of it.

Torture reenactment: Shocking with electric batons

After the noon break when the guards came back on duty, I was called to the office again and shocked with electric batons until it was time for them to go home for the day.

Ye Jiong forced me to stand with my face to the wall. She kept saying, “Move forward…” and kicked my legs when my feet most touched the wall. She extended my term by another five days.

I was forced to stand this way for over ten days. I was forced to stand while I worked, while others were allowed to sit, but I had to do the same workload. We made all kinds of bags and food containers. I was forced to stand and work until 11:00 p.m., with two “baojia” watching me.

For 67 days, from July 24 to September 30, I was often abused, hit, punched, kicked, and shocked with electric batons. For days I was forced to stand straight for 17.5 hours per day, from 5:30 a.m. to 11:00 p.m., sit on a small plastic flower pot, or stand straight with my face close to the wall and work 17.5 hours per day.

October 18, 2012: Nearly 12 Hours of “Stretching Torture”

After breakfast on October 18, 2012, Ye Jiong and others tied my wrists and ankles and hung them from the four poles of a bunk bed.

Torture reenactment: Stretching torture

I was in such excruciating pain that I cried out loudly. They stuffed my mouth with a towel and wrapped my mouth with adhesive tape. They also gagged me with pieces of cloth repeatedly.

Before they finished for the day, guard Jia came and shocked the soles of my feet with an electric baton, urging me to write the “five statements.” Liu Ying sat on my abdomen a number of times while my body was hung in the air to stop me from screaming out in agony. The guards finished work at 3:00 p.m. Liu Ying came to sit on my abdomen many times, until 8:00 p.m.

I was tortured for nearly 12 hours, from 8:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m., and could no longer endure the pain. They untied me after they recorded my verbal agreement to write the “statements.” Liu Ying and Ye Jiong, along with two other “helpers” they hired at 200 yuan per day, brought me down from the bed and helped me to sit in front of a table by the window. Ye Jiong sat across from me. I wrote what she told me to write, sentence by sentence, and all of it was lies.

After the torture, my hands and feet were black and blue, and swollen like steamed buns. Sweat and tears covered my face, and my hair was soaking wet with sweat.

October 2012 to February 2013: Continued Brainwashing

The next day, I was put in another room, where the two hired helpers tried to “lecture” me, while Liu Ying, Wang Lei, Ye Jiong, two “baojia,” and others were also present to support the helpers, and to threaten me, “If you don’t listen properly, we’ll put you on the ‘stretcher’ again!”

Liu Ying and Ye Jiong started to punch and kick me, and slap my face when they saw I was a bit slow. They forced me to listen and repeat the lies told by the helpers.

They also played slanderous videos, while the two helpers said terrible things about Falun Gong at the same time. I said, “Practitioners didn’t do anything wrong. Your reports distort the facts. We aren’t violating any laws by exercising our freedom of speech telling people the truth.” Liu Ying and Ye Jiong rushed to me and started punching and kicking me, while Wang Lei slapped my face over ten times.

When the guards finished work, the helpers also went to eat downstairs. I thought about how to write a solemn statement to deny what I had written under torture. I had only written two lines when a helper came and grabbed it away. One helper shouted at me, “What are you doing?” I said calmly, “I want to write a diary to record what happened on the 18th.”

When the guards came to work the next day, they seemed to be less vicious than before. The two helpers, knowing that they couldn’t transform me as I didn’t believe what they said, stopped coming to lecture me, and they left on the afternoon of October 23.

On the evening of December 24, guard Jia called me to the corridor and warned me, “People from the provincial 610 Office and the bureau for inspection are coming tomorrow. You’d better cooperate. Otherwise you will get an extension and you won’t be able to leave here. Don’t you want to go home early?”

Two people came into the room during the inspection. One asked me, “Is Falun Gong a cult?” I said firmly, “No.”

The next morning, guard Jia came to my room, slapped my face hard a few times, and verbally abused me. Towards the end of January 2013, there was another inspection, and I said, “Falun Dafa is good.” In their words, I failed the test in the worst way.

Every detainee had to wear a badge at the labor camp, with one’s name and the dates of arrival and release on it. The badges were in three colors: red, yellow, and green. The red ones were worn by those who didn’t plead guilty and therefore had no reduction in sentence. The yellow and green ones were worn by those who pled guilty, and the green badges indicated more reduction than the yellow ones.

I wore a red badge during the one and a half of years at the forced labor camp, plus 40 days of extension.

Final Threat on the Day of Release

Upon release, ordinary detainees were taken out through the gate and met by their family members. However most Falun Gong practitioners were picked up by the 610 Office and local police so they could be further persecuted.

On my release day, the guards asked the police from our county to pick me up. Liu Ying also asked them to pick me up from my room upstairs. She called all the detainees from No. 3 Division to line up along the corridor.

She said, “Cai Guoxian is being released today, and she is being picked up by people from the local council and local police station…” I knew she said this to threaten me and to warn and threaten others.

Despite the arrangement made by the labor camp, those who picked me up allowed me to go home in the end.